Don Bennett's War - Chapter 12

Don Bennett's War

Chapter 12 - Vosges Mountains

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The next day we were trucked up a few miles closer to the front. We were up in the mountains and snow now. Some mortars began firing around us and we knew we were next to the front for mortars have short ranges. We tried to find a place to dig in where we could also sleep that night if possible. Since there was snow all around and also rocky land, it was hard to find a place. We dug a small hole in the rock and snow, but when we were done, we were cold and wet and when we laid down we were too cold and shivering too much to rest. We couldn't build a fire to get warm and dry, and we couldn't lay down to rest or sleep, and we couldn't warm by walking, for we wanted to stick close to our holes - so we just felt helpless and took it. The mortars kept up all day and toward evening some of "D" Company (mortar and machine gun company) started coming back through our company and told of the battle Companies "F" and "H" had that day. On their first day of battle, one of them had nearly 50% casualties. They had been caught in an artillery barrage trying to cross a clear area and river ahead of us. During the -night we were told to get ready to go, and early in the morning we started moving up to the front and to the flat Companies "F" and "H" couldn't cross. We walked up to the front single file in the dark with nothing to guide us in the pitch blackness except the man ahead of us. Sometimes we would lose sight of the man ahead of us and then we would run to catch up and not lose contact. When we would run, the men behind would also run and then would all catch up at the same time, and run into the man ahead. Near dawn we came onto a small road and a few minutes later onto a larger road where a Sergeant was directing us to hurry across to the other side as the enemy was just around the comer ahead.

We went up on a side of a good size hill and were told to grab a few minutes rest as we were going to need it. We got about an hour of sleep, but then became too cold to sleep. The mountain fog lifted a little, and we were told to get ready to go, but to be careful of mines as men had been killed by them easily in the morning. While approaching the trees which were to be our jumping off place to cross the 500 yard wide valley, I saw my first dead German (killed the day before). He was halfway out of a foxhole, still clutching his rifle, and had a neat hole in his forehead with a little blood running down from it. It was a startling sight, but a forecast of things to come. We laid down in the bushes before the valley and discarded any unnecessary equipment we had so we would have little to impair us on our dash across the valley. We threw away our blankets and all personal belongings, keeping only a shelter half (tent), rifles and ammunition, and a few K rations. Just at the time our jump off orders came, my ammunition belt came off, and I took off holding my rifle on my shoulder with one hand and my belt together with the other, and with a very scared feeling. My helmet bounced around on my head, sometimes covering my eyes, and nearly came off several times during my dash across the valley. Due to my impairments I was the last of our platoon to make it across. Although only a few shells exploded a little to our left, our bazooka man became scared and threw his bazooka away so he wouldn't have anything to slow him down. This act we were all to regret later.

Chapter 13 - St. Diè < - - - next

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